Beginners guide to melbourne cycling

Andrew E said:

Really want to get back into cycling from a fitness/social perspective. But
to be frank the Melbourne cycling community seems very "cliquey" and pretty
intimdating for someone that's going to be a weak rider.

It isnt
well thats not really true. Bits of it are. Not the big bits

Quoted message said:

What's the deal? Join a club? What kind of fitness level am I going to need?

Cycling is a social sport. Even racers... even serious racers.. chat
all the time. Its not like for example running. Its fine.

The deal is ride. Chat to people. If someone tells you to bugger off
well fine. Plenty more won;t.

Quoted message said:

Just don't want to embarrass myself!

Hah

We have TimC who rumor has it has been offered Busters job on
mythbusters. We have me with my only saving grace being my gf, We have
Dutch who picks fights will all the local druggies at once and wins. We
have Bleve who knows everything and is right about much of it. We have
Tam and need no one else in the army. We have Zeebee who is so left
wing she is on the right. We have Kathy who crashed both sides of my
bike at once. And Ian who blew away Euan who in turn blew away me. But
Ian is a middle aged guy who has had a triple bypass.
And so on. How the hell can you embarrass yourself and why would you
care 🙂

Just ride and have fun mate. Seriously

Dave

Quoted message said:

Thanks
Andrew

Andrew E said:

Really want to get back into cycling from a fitness/social perspective. But to be frank the Melbourne cycling community seems very "cliquey" and pretty intimdating for someone that's going to be a weak rider.

What's the deal? Join a club? What kind of fitness level am I going to need?

Just don't want to embarrass myself!

What sort of riding are you after? Commuter stuff, track, road, piddling along a bikepath on Sunday? Ok, sorry about the last suggestion. Fer starters there's the aus.bicycle BR 7.20am every Sunday morn (virtually)
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Sunday-BR

Then there's bicycle user groups. Boroondara, Yarra & DarebinBUG's are really *cool* DarebinBUG actually has a excellent ride calendar. Which some of us are planning to emulate. But that's another story.
http://www.yarrabug.org/victoria-bug-contacts/

BV have a ride calendar, results and quantity may vary:
http://bv.com.au/find.php

Audax organise rides over 50km+
http://www.audax.org.au/calendar.asp

Fixed!
http://fixed.org.au/

Couriers:
http://www.melburnmassive.com/

Bike Fun Melbourne:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/bikefunmelbourne/
Promoting cycling community in Melbourne through prolific bike fun.Please, have more bike fun. All rides go at social pace, run rain or shine, and are free. For submissions or to sign up for the electronic version of BikeFun – email: [email hidden].

Melb Cyclocross:
http://melbournecx.blogspot.com/

Pub Bicycle Users Group:
For the really slack, this bunch of ner'do wells meet up once a fortnight down at Mountain Goat Brewery in Burnley and talk [censored] about bikes and even more [censored] about bikes. Actually they *do* talk a lot of [censored]. But tend to be mostly harmless and quite friendly
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pub_bug/

Various clubs and bike shops have a vast array of organised activities et al I'm sure someone might will mention more about this.

dave said:

Andrew E said:

Really want to get back into cycling from a fitness/social perspective. But
to be frank the Melbourne cycling community seems very "cliquey" and pretty
intimdating for someone that's going to be a weak rider.

It isnt
well thats not really true. Bits of it are. Not the big bits

Quoted message said:

What's the deal? Join a club? What kind of fitness level am I going to need?

Cycling is a social sport. Even racers... even serious racers.. chat
all the time. Its not like for example running. Its fine.

The deal is ride. Chat to people. If someone tells you to bugger off
well fine. Plenty more won;t.

Quoted message said:

Just don't want to embarrass myself!

Hah

We have TimC who rumor has it has been offered Busters job on
mythbusters. We have me with my only saving grace being my gf, We have
Dutch who picks fights will all the local druggies at once and wins. We
have Bleve who knows everything and is right about much of it. We have
Tam and need no one else in the army. We have Zeebee who is so left
wing she is on the right. We have Kathy who crashed both sides of my
bike at once. And Ian who blew away Euan who in turn blew away me. But
Ian is a middle aged guy who has had a triple bypass.
And so on. How the hell can you embarrass yourself and why would you
care 🙂

Just ride and have fun mate. Seriously

here here!

To add my 2c, what do you want to achieve? Do you want to race? Ride
AUDAX stuff? Just tootle up & down Beach Rd? (nothing wrong with that,
btw!) Go fanging around the bush on a MTB? Cruise the bike paths? So
many options, so much choice, so much fun to be had!

On 2006-06-22, dave (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Andrew E said:

Really want to get back into cycling from a fitness/social perspective. But
to be frank the Melbourne cycling community seems very "cliquey" and pretty
intimdating for someone that's going to be a weak rider.

It isnt
well thats not really true. Bits of it are. Not the big bits

Quoted message said:

What's the deal? Join a club? What kind of fitness level am I going to need?

Cycling is a social sport. Even racers... even serious racers.. chat
all the time. Its not like for example running. Its fine.

Bwa! Take that, Tam!

Quoted message said:

The deal is ride. Chat to people. If someone tells you to bugger off
well fine. Plenty more won;t.

Go down to Beach road or the yarra boulivard in Kew if you want to be
where there are masses of cyclists of all levels. The latter doesn't
have cafes though. Having said that, I'm a horribly unsociable person
who would be completly lost socially if he wanted to start riding
beach road, and poped into some random cafe. That's why I met the
friendly folk here in melb.bicycle 🙂

Also, depends what kind of riding. I joined MBTC for my first year of
social riding here. That opened up a few networks.

Join your local BUG too, they're community minded, and might help you
out about where to go.

Just read up on the cyclist bunch ettiquete and safety threads that
pop up in here every now and then before you go joining in bunches for
the first time.

--
TimC
That [Tim-Tam] would be the Classic. Not to be confused with the
Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate, and Double Chocolate flavour.
(Personally, I prefer Cadbury's Doubles myself. Tim Tams don't taste
enough of chocolate.) -- Faceless Man on ARK

dave said:

We have Bleve who knows everything and is right about much of it...

so now Dave is 'Kathy' AND 'BLEVE'??? 🙄

flyingdutch said:

dave said:

We have Bleve who knows everything and is right about much of it...

so now Dave is 'Kathy' AND 'BLEVE'??? 🙄

Huh. When have I asserted I 'know everything'

or are you asserting it for me?

hmmmm.

The cat can;t fool me. SHe is not asleep.

Bleve said:

here here!

Where?

Theo

dave said:

Huh. When have I asserted I 'know everything'

or are you asserting it for me?

hmmmm.

The cat can;t fool me. SHe is not asleep.

No, you silly. was commenting that you thought Bleve knows everything 😄

Of course he doesnt. Let me prove it! Bleve. How many fingers am i holding up?

cfsmtb said:

.......piddling along a bikepath on Sunday? Ok, sorry about the last
suggestion.....

Hey! Nothing wrong with ambling along a bikepath on Sunday, if that's
what you feel happiest doing. Lots of less confident folks in Darebin
BUG got a start doing just that and now ride on roads. You could toast
marshmallows in the heat of the pride they feel for having done that -
and I reckon that's fantastic.

I don't care what people ride or where they ride it or how fast they
ride it. The point is that they give it a go and (hopefully) that the
more confident and experienced cyclists encourage and support them.

Persia

flyingdutch said:

Of course he doesnt. Let me prove it! Bleve. How many fingers am i holding up?

Oh sick, thats the worst John Hopoate impression I've ever seen! (didn't he only use the one finger?)

:p

flyingdutch said:

No, you silly. was commenting that you thought Bleve knows everything 😄

Of course he doesnt. Let me prove it! Bleve. How many fingers am i holding up?

none - your shoulder just popped out!

sorry - I am not Bleve roflmao :eek:

flyingdutch said:

dave said:

Huh. When have I asserted I 'know everything'

or are you asserting it for me?

hmmmm.

The cat can;t fool me. SHe is not asleep.

No, you silly. was commenting that you thought Bleve knows everything
😄

Of course he doesnt. Let me prove it! Bleve. How many fingers am i
holding up?

That's easy. e^(i.PI -1)

flyingdutch said:

Of course he doesnt. Let me prove it! Bleve. How many fingers am i
holding up?

Just the one, the middle one.

Theo

persia said:

cfsmtb said:

.......piddling along a bikepath on Sunday? Ok, sorry about the last

I don't care what people ride or where they ride it or how fast they
ride it. The point is that they give it a go and (hopefully) that the
more confident and experienced cyclists encourage and support them.

Persia

My own experience with having just joined the BNE LA rides is that
though I'm much, much older than most others I've received nothing but
encouragement from every single person, for which I'm truly grateful.

Karen

--
"I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
- Slartibartfast

Karen Gallagher said:

My own experience with having just joined the BNE LA rides is that
though I'm much, much older than most others I've received nothing but
encouragement from every single person, for which I'm truly grateful.

Karen

Just encouragement? If you pretend to forget your wallet, you can get free coffee out of that mob as well! Worked for me anyway 🙂

Adam

I didnt get into cycling for the social game, afterall don't a large number of [male] cyclists shave their legs? Oops, no thank you.
But, unlike motorsports, cycling of all types involve a closer interation with the like-minded & things go from there.

I reckon Melbourne's a great place to turn a crank & anything you wanna do on two wheels [harmonic action] you can do here.

There are a lot of blokes who have a wide range of pushbikes in the shed from track/fixed to raod to MTB, & all get a good turn at one time or another. Even fixed MTBs !!

Sure you get cliche groups, but you get that sort of thing when people spend too much time bullshiyting & not enough time riding.

dave said:

Andrew E wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Really want to get back into cycling from a fitness/social perspective. But
to be frank the Melbourne cycling community seems very "cliquey" and pretty
intimdating for someone that's going to be a weak rider.

<snip a bit>

Quoted message said:

We have
Tam and need no one else in the army.

<snip the rest>

*gasps!!* When did Tam move down to Melbourne?!?!

Abby... ;-)

Marx SS said:

Sure you get cliche groups, but you get that sort of thing when people spend too much time bullshiyting & not enough time riding.

You must be talking about beach road, a classic example.

persia said:

Hey! Nothing wrong with ambling along a bikepath on Sunday, if that's
what you feel happiest doing. Lots of less confident folks in Darebin
BUG got a start doing just that and now ride on roads. You could toast
marshmallows in the heat of the pride they feel for having done that -
and I reckon that's fantastic.

I don't care what people ride or where they ride it or how fast they
ride it. The point is that they give it a go and (hopefully) that the
more confident and experienced cyclists encourage and support them.

That's exactly why I typed that comment + apols. If people want to ride along a bikepath to increase skills & confidence, then that's all fine and dandy. Who knows where these increased skills and confidence will lead to... more commuting to work, a regular trip to the velodrome or riding off the front somewhere...?